Mystery #35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor, Chapters 4-7
Chapters 1-3
I was going to do Part 2 of this snark tomorrow, but I need to kill some time, so it's time to head back to Bizarro World!
Chapter 4 opens with Abby asking: "Have you ever experienced true boredom?" Yeah, I sure have. It's called reading Chapter 2 of any BSC book.
By the way, Abby is still sick, so she's staying home again. In fact, she'll be at home for quite a while--she has bronchitis, and her allergies are complicating things.
So anyway, it's Wednesday afternoon and Abby's trying to find something to do with her time. She looks out one of her windows for "inspiration" and sees a woodpecker. Ah ha! Bird watching will kill some time! Get those binoculars ready! Oh, wait, sorry, the bird is "kind of boring." Abby is about to put the binoculars away when she sees the school bus, then decides to start people-watching instead of bird-watching. She continues spying--oh, I'm sorry--"just...looking" for a while until she hears "Snick, snick, snick." Oh, don't tell me that Mr. Finch is mowing his lawn AGA--oh no, that's just another neighbor pruning her rosebushes. Abby decides to look into Mr. Finch's backyard anyway (nice, Abby *eyeroll*).
But then, GASP! Abby realizes that the criminal who looked famiilar is "the spitting image of Mr. Finch." DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!
It's Chapter 5! Oh, the sideplot. There's not too much going on here--the kiddums are building their go-carts and such. Whatever, I have a mystery to deal with. Moving right along....
Chapter 6 opens at a BSC meeting--and even though she still feels terrible, Abby begs her mom to let her go. Mrs. Stevenson okays that, but tells Abby to come straight home.
So anyway, after the girls finish talking about their charges (Really, girls, you can talk about something other than your sitting jobs. It's not that difficult, I swear.), Kristy asks if there's any new business. Abby says she has some--there's a mystery to be solved! The other girls look interested (OF COURSE they do), so Abby tells them about the whole Mr. Finch situation. The rest of the BSC is skeptical, and even Abby thinks she could be imagining things. The meeting continues, and by 6:00 Abby is "more than ready" to go home, she's tired, dizzy and coughing.
So Abby heads home and rests until dinnertime. However, she can barely eat her soup because she's so tired, so she goes back to her room. It's getting dark out, so the nearby houses are turning on their lights--including Mr. Finch's house, of course. Hooray, spying time! Oh, wait, he's just having dinner. Sad trom--what? Abby noticed something else? And it actually caused a chill to run down her spine? I...see. Let's move on to the next chapter, eh?
Chapter 7 begins with Abby calling Kristy to tell her about what she (Abby, I mean) saw--there were children's drawings on Mr. Finch's refrigerator! He must be the scumbag who left his family ZOMG! Kristy tells Abby that she's jumping to conclusions--"He could have nieces and nephews or grandchildren. Or maybe he’s a schoolteacher. There could be a million reasons why he has those pictures." Abby protests, then Kristy essentially tells her to STFU and go to bed, which Abby does.
The next morning, Abby's spying on Mr. Finch again. She doesn't see anything at first, but then JACKPOT! Mr. Finch is home watering his plants! He must be living off of stolen money! Abby, dear, are you familiar with working from home? Or having a day off? Just checking (OK, OK, [spoiler!] it turns out that she's right to be suspicious, but still...).
Spying isn't very helpful, so Abby decides to get more information about Mr. Finch. She gets the phonebook and finds the listing she's looking for: Finch, O., 2105 Kemp Avenue. But woe! The phonebook doesn't list his first name! Mmm, I guess you'd better go back to spying--wait, no, I was kidding! Don't--oh, brother, she's got the binoculars ready. I'm not gonna be able to stop her, am I? Dammit.
So Abby starts spying again, and no summary does this justice (pardon the pun), so I'll quote her:
I went back upstairs and spent some more time monitoring his activities. First he washed some dishes. Then he sat in a recliner near the living room window for awhile, reading the newspaper. After that, he made a phone call, jotting down some notes on a pad that sat on a table near the phone. (I would have loved to be able to read them, but my binoculars weren’t quite strong enough.) Then Mr. Finch disappeared into another part of the house. I watched for awhile longer, but he didn’t reappear.
Um, Abby? You're crossing into creeper territory, hon.
Since spying won't help her for the rest of the morning, Abby takes a nap, has some soup for lunch and then reads until Mystery Trackers comes on. After the show ends, Abby calls their hotline to report her suspicions. She finds out the names of the two men featured on the previous show: "The bank robber’s name is Harry Bronson, and the other one, the embezzler, is named Arthur Maguire." But wait, where are they from? Ah, Bronson is from San Francisco and Maguire is from Des Moines. OK, then. Are you done, Abby? You are? OK.
...You're going to go spy again, aren't you? Ugh.
That round of spying also isn't very fruitful. Just then, a beacon of hope! Wait, no, it's just Kristy. Abby gives Kristy a call, and mercifully for my psyche, this chapter (as well as Part 2 of this snark) is over.
The next few chapters will be up soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go get an e-cocktail.